Nursery owner Erik S. Hagiwara-Nagata's gardening tips

camellias (cont.)

Camellias are one of the old standards of the gardening world. They have a year round quality lending them to be used in accent and entry garden plantings. The early C. sasanqua has been in bloom for some time and many cvs. have finished blooming for this year. However, there are many more to come. Several new species and hybrids are now available, and there are very interesting unusual cvs. which are obtainable if you persist. Fragrant hybrids are now available to many. You have to snap them up quick since once a good gardener sees them, they buy them, so late comers miss out, even on seeing the plant! There are small to larger flowered sorts and singles and doubles in whites, and pinks, a few reds. The new trend is for small flowers in mass display and they tend also to have small fine textured leaves. High Fragrance is a showy one, suitable for espalliers, but fine as a garden subject. Medium blush – pink double flowers are fragrant. Minato no Akebono and Koto no Kaori are fine small profues flowered pink singles. Fragrance is spicy. Cinnamon Cindy is a favorite with small double white flowers. There are others!
Camellia species that are newer are outstanding in some instances. C. fraterna, C. nokoensis, C. foresstii, C. lutchuensis, C. synaptica, C. transonokoensis, C. salicifolia, C. tsaii are all fine, exceedingly outstanding garden subjects and quite often different from the average gardener’s idea/expectations of what a traditional camellia looks like.
Some unusal forms are the black flowered group: “Kuro Tsubaki, Night Rider, Black Magic, Black Opal, Black Prince. Picoteed forms include “Tama no Ura, Tama Peacock, Kakure Iso, Margaret Davis, Jean Clear.
Unusual foliage forms: Kingyo Tsubaki (goldfish tail leaf), White Mermaid(Shiro Rancho Kingyo ba Tsubaki), Nokogiri ba (sawtooth leaf), Kin sekai(variegated yellow medial blotch, Taiyo(wide yellow margin, Reigyoku (broad white-yellow margin of leaf)
All camellias like well drained soil, prefer partial shade and humus in soil, regular to ample watering (at least in early years to establish the plant.
more info on the website blog
www.hanascape.com
or visit the nursery (Garden Delights Nursery) to see the plants in person